Thriller Introduces a New Edition

Freida McFadden’s Release of Her New Book “The Intruder”

Photo by Florencia Viadana on Unsplash

On Oct. 7, 2025, Freida McFadden released her new thriller book titled “The Intruder” as a hardcover and ebook, then in Nov., the large print edition was also published. Fans eagerly visited local bookstores, looking to purchase this book, excited to see what this bestselling author has produced this time.  

McFadden debuted as an author in 2013 when she self-published her first book titled “The Devil Wears Scrubs.” In 2022, her book “The Housemaid” became a huge hit and was on The New York Times best-seller list. McFadden wrote “The Housemaid” back in 2019, but thought it was a little too different, dark and disturbing, from her other books and decided not to publish it immediately. When she finally published it, readers were thrilled. This book quickly became popular, and a movie for the book started being filmed in Jan. 2025. McFadden continued to publish more books that all became popular, and she quickly became known as one of the best thriller authors. 

McFadden’s book “The Intruder” is based on two perspectives, a teenage girl named Ella and an older woman named Casey. In the beginning, we get the introductions into their lives. Ella is a teenage girl who likes to cause a little bit of trouble at her school. She comes from a rough background, having a dad who supposedly "abandoned her” and a mother who does not treat her properly, which is the prime cause of her behavior at school. We then find out that Casey, the other perspective, got fired from her old job for such a terrible reason, that she cut ties to every social aspect of her life and moved to a remote cabin where nobody knows her. 

Later in Ella’s story, she becomes friends with her former bully after saving his life, and they quickly become each other's closest friend and soon later love interest. They share similar interests, both causing trouble at school, but also have a shared traumatic home life. We continue on as Ella relentlessly tries to find her biological father, accusing some to be her father. This causes her and her mother to have a ruthless fight, leading to Ella’s final straw with her mother, later killing her. Ella expresses how she did love her mom, but she could not put up with the abuse and torment anymore, leading to her putting an end to it all. When social workers come to help Ella, they find that her real dad actually was prevented from being part of Ella’s life by Ella’s mother. Ella then starts her life over with her dad, living a better life than she had with her mother. 

With Casey, a terrible storm is coming and Casey is scared that her house will not withstand the storm, not knowing that she has bigger things to worry about. She finds a girl hiding outside her house, drenched in blood. She takes her in thinking she could help, not knowing that the girl would later hold Casey hostage and threaten to kill her. 

Towards the end, many readers believed the same little girl Casey found and took in was the other main character, Ella. They thought that Ella killed her mother, then for some unknown reason wanted to find Casey and kill her. At this point in the book, the predictability was at a low, with readers thinking that they could see the ending from a mile away.

At the end of the story, we find out that both of the main characters are actually the same person. Additionally, Ella was never trying to harm Casey, but instead trying to get to her neighbor who she thought was her biological father. We find out that the neighbor was her biological father’s brother, clarifying why the little girl thought he was her father, who coincidentally is the same boy that Casey/Ella first fell in love with back in middle school. With this complete plot twist, readers quickly were drawn into the book. Most readers are recorded to not have been able to guess any of the book's ending, creating the predictability of this book to make it an intriguing read. 

Overall, the book can be considered a thriller, both in tone and genre. While the beginning of the book is slow and boring, making the suspense factor low, the ending certainly made up for it. With a jaw-dropping plot twist and interesting storyline, Freida McFadden proves once again why she is considered one of the best thriller authors with this very clever book!

<Star Ratings>

Suspense: ★★★★★

Predictability: ★★★★★

Plot: ★★★★★

Rating: ★★★★★